3 replies to this topic

[Tripredacus]

I'm thinking of possibly using PXELinux at some point in the future, but I need to figure out a couple of things first. Before I can even begin to think of the goal, I need to start at the beginning yes?

I currently have PXELinux set as the default boot option on my dev server. In the menu, you can choose to boot to WDS on that server using:

Kernel pxeboot.0

This works fine. But is it possible to load a PXE boot rom on a different server, or is it only possible to load the boot rom on the server that booted PXELinux?

[Icecube]

It is possible.

Look at http://www.syslinux....May/017633.html

I don't know for sure if pxechn.c32 is already in the precompiled version or that you need to compile it from git.

[Tripredacus]

OK excellent. I have another question then. In Server 2008 R2, when a PXE boot request is made, the NIC reports an "arch" value that WDS uses to determine what type of boot environment the client is capable of. Can PXELinux see this value?

Its going to be a little bit before I actually get to test of this, so I'm just in research mode right now.

Looks like the version I have has a pxechain.com that serves a similar purpose. Here is something from IBM.
http://publib.boulde..._pxe_chain.html

Edited by Tripredacus, 06 June 2012 - 08:19 PM.

[geneC]

It should be seen with ifcpu.c32.

pxechn.c32 is only available precompiled in Syslinux-4.06-pre5. It is far more capable than pxechain.com which can only use PXENV_RESTART_TFTP. It can also manipulate the PXE stack's packets to allow you to chainload to Windows Server 2008R2 WDS on another server, as long as gPXE/iPXE isn't in the mix (for now).